


Like a Woman Scorned

by Zana_Zira



Category: Supernatural
Genre: - non-sexual, Adultery, BAMF Castiel, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Case Fic, Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Demonic Possession, Destiel if you squint really hard, Execution of an Innocent, F/M, Fainting, Gen, Gen Work, Ghosts, Guilt, Hospitals, Hurt Dean Winchester, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mouth-to-Mouth, Murder, Nearly Human Castiel, Pie, Rituals, Season/Series 05, Small Towns, Spirits, Strangulation, Team Free Will, Unconsciousness, Weak Castiel, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 13:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zana_Zira/pseuds/Zana_Zira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in Season 5. A string of mysterious suicides in Ada, Oklahoma leads Sam, Dean, and Castiel on a puzzling hunt - one originating several centuries and 1600 miles away. But they may be in over their heads when whatever's causing these suicides picks one of them as its next target...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. Sadly, I do not own any of these guys.

_Windsor, Connecticut – May 25, 1647_

The early summer sun had not yet begun to rise above the tree line when Alse Young began preparing for her day's housework. There were loaves of bread to be baked, cows to be milked, and eggs to be collected, and all of this would be done before her husband woke so that he could eat his fill before he went off to the fields. After twenty-two years of marriage, it was a routine she was well acquainted with.

Alse and John had married in 1625, the day after her twenty-fifth birthday. She loved him dearly and nine years later, she had given birth to their daughter Alice. They bought this tiny parcel of land six years ago, longing for a simpler life far from the bustle of Hartford and immediately falling in love with the quiet, misty forests that surrounded the tiny old farmhouse. They moved onto the modest property with the then seven-year-old Alice, and from that day on they lived a relatively secluded life.

John worked out in the fields most days, growing his wheat and rye and barley while Alse and Alice tended to the chickens and cows that would provide them with eggs and milk. This year the market for the crops had been better than usual, and John had even managed to scrounge up enough money for a few hogs. The one they had butchered so far had been fat and meaty, enough to keep them all fed for weeks if the meat was properly preserved. This would be a task for the two women; the preparation of meat, or any food for that matter, was women's work, and so John's only role would be to eat it when it was finished.

Besides her normal household responsibilities such as cooking and cleaning, Alse was also quite gifted in the art of white magic, especially the preparation of medicines used to ease the pain of childbirth. The people of Windsor had come to respect her skills as a healer and a midwife, and she had helped almost all of the women in the small town deliver at least one child over the last six years. Thirteen-year-old Alice had begun assisting her mother in the deliveries two seasons ago, being old enough now to learn the skills of midwifery and help to prepare the herbal medicines she would one day use herself.

After the morning chores were finished and John had departed for the fields, Alse sent her daughter off to tend the animals and ventured into town in hopes of finding one of the travelling merchants. They often carried herbs and spices that were hard to find locally, and after a harsh winter filled with many illnesses followed by a cold spring, her stores of herbal remedies were beginning to run dangerously low. When she reached the main street near the church, she encountered Bridget Townsend, the wife of a local tanner who she had befriended during the first year after she and John moved to Windsor. She waved to the younger woman, and when Bridget noticed her she smiled and waved back, making her way over to Alse with her two-year-old daughter in tow.

"Alse, how nice to see you!" Bridget said with a bright smile, brushing a strand of red-brown hair back where it had come loose from her bonnet. "I haven't seen or heard from you since that last snow we had two months ago."

"Yes, I know, and I apologize for that," Alse answered with a smile of her own. "I've been busy teaching Alice to prepare medicines. She's quite a talent, too; perhaps she'll be better than me with a few more years' experience."

"I doubt that, but it's good to know there's another woman in town with skills to rival yours. I don't know what we should do if anything would ever happen to you."

"I'm flattered, dear. And don't worry, I should be here for a long while yet. John takes very good care of me, after all. He's in the fields even now, planting some of the early summer crop."

Bridget's smile was replaced with a confused purse of her lips. "Is that so? I could have sworn I just spotted John over near the butcher's, but perhaps I was mistaken."

"You must have been. He told me he would be sowing oats all day today."

" _Wild oats, perhaps…_ " Bridget muttered under her breath.

"What did you say?" Alse asked, hoping she had not heard that correctly. "I'm afraid I didn't hear you."

"Oh, I only said that I should talk to my husband about buying some of your crop this year. Our stores are a little low."

"You should indeed. I'm sure John would give you a very fair price this late in the season."

"I certainly hope so. Well, I'd best be off, Alse. I've got to have the house clean before Robert gets home. He loves having a clean house to track mud into!"

She said the last part with a chuckle, and Alse laughed along with her despite the anxious beating of her heart. "Well then, don't let me keep you. Give Robert my regards!"

Bridget nodded and departed for her home, and as soon as she had disappeared around the corner Alse made her way toward the butcher's shop. It was a well-known fact that the town butcher had a pretty young daughter whose moral compass was more than a little skewed, and she often caused trouble for younger men who were easily led astray. That thought sent an icy stab of fear through Alse's heart. Surely John would not be so foolishly tempted? But he  _had_  been acting distant lately, and when she had asked why he had simply told her not to worry before leaving whatever room they were in to go off on his own.

Besides which, Alse was not as young as she used to be. She had never been stunning, but she had always been pretty in a simple sort of way, well-dressed without being immodest. At forty-seven years old, though, her beautiful oval-shaped face was beginning to wrinkle, and her raven-colored hair was already thoroughly peppered with streaks of gray. Her hands were weathered from years of housework and scarred from being cut while picking herbs, and she had become a bit plump after the birth of her daughter, losing the slim waist she had always had in her younger years.

Now that she thought about it, a younger woman than she might indeed prove too tempting for greater men than John, especially if it was that little golden-haired tart. She strode toward the shed behind the butcher's house with purpose now, finding the place where the animals' feed was kept and throwing open the door. The sight before her would forever be burned into her mind, almost as if it had been branded there.

Just as she had suspected, John and the butcher's daughter were both inside the shed, naked and tangled around each other in a twisting mass of limbs while they rutted like animals in the straw, sweating and panting and crying out each other's names. When they finally noticed her standing there, both of them froze for an instant, too surprised to speak. Then John jumped up in surprise, pulling himself away from the young woman with a growl while she shrieked and covered as much of herself as she could with handfuls of hay.

Alse stared at her husband, eyes wide in disbelief and heart racing frantically, before she spun on her heel and ran for home, leaving John behind to scramble into his clothes and follow after her.

* * *

"It isn't her fault, Alse!" John shouted across the table at his wife. Gone was the tone of love and devotion he had always used when he was with her, the sparkle in his eye that had always been present when they were together. Now he raged like a man possessed, furious at having been caught and not able to understand why his wife was so angry with him.

"Of course it isn't her fault! It's yours as well!" Alse screamed back, standing up and slamming her palms down on the old oak surface. "You are older than I, John, and she is only twenty! You should know better!"

"You had best watch how you talk to me, Alse. I am your husband, and you'd do well to respect me more than that."

"I respect my  _husband_ , yes. This man I see before me is little more than a stranger, and an adulterer at that. Neither of those things are deserving of my respect."

"Damn it all, Alse! Can't you see I'm not happy here anymore?"

"Why is that?" Alse asked softly, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. "What is it about that harlot that makes you happier than I do?"

"She can give me sons!" John spat, and Alse reeled with the force of the insult. It was a sad truth that she had only ever had one child in twenty-two years, though it was not for lack of trying. After having four miscarriages and almost losing Alice during her pregnancy, both of them had decided to be content with having one daughter and raising her as well as they could. They had always wanted a son to inherit their estate should something happen to them, as did every family, but now that she was past the age of childbearing there was no way that that would ever happen.

"It doesn't matter, John," Alse said venomously, her eyes flashing with hurt and anger as she glared at her husband. "Adultery is a sin in the eyes of God, and a shame on your family name. You had best turn yourself in and ask forgiveness from the church, because I certainly can't forgive this. In fact, I've half a mind to turn you in myself."

John's eyes widened and his tone became desperate. "Please Alse, you can't! I'll be thrown out of the town at the very least, and I might even be killed! What would Alice do without her father?"

Alse's eyes softened very slightly, and she sighed before she turned her back on him. "Then find a way to remedy this, John, because I am through with you."

John nodded, reaching out a hand as if to pat her shoulder, and then thought better of it. Alse heard the door slam, and a few moments later she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

* * *

As it turned out, John did find a way to remedy the situation. The very next morning, some of the townsmen arrived at her doorstep, breaking the lock and barging in before Alse and Alice could open it for them. The two women were immediately arrested, their wrists chained together before they were marched out of the house for three miles to the town square.

When they cried out in anger and asked why they were being taken, it was revealed that John had come to the leader of the church the night before, crying and shaking in fear while he told the minister that he had caught both his wife and daughter practicing witchcraft. He claimed that they had attempted to curse him with black magic, bewitching him into committing adultery so that he might be hanged and they could inherit his estate. Alse protested this immediately, but it was useless; all of her medicine-mixing equipment and books of charms and remedies were enough evidence for the townspeople.

At noon on May twenty-sixth, 1647, Alse and Alice Young were led up to the gallows, where they were sentenced to be hanged by the neck until death before the entire town, for the crime of practicing witchcraft. As the wooden crates under her feet were kicked away and the noose tightened around her neck, Alse Young glimpsed her husband and the butcher's daughter standing together in the crowd, watching with only mild interest as she and his child met their deaths. In her final living moments, Alse consulted every black art she had ever learned, drawing strength from one last furious thought…

 _John Young, you will pay dearly_ _for this_.


	2. On the Road Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. Sadly, I do not own any of these guys.
> 
> A/N: This story is set about halfway through Season 5, after War and Famine have been killed but before meeting Crowley, Pestilence, or Death. I know Castiel didn't start losing this much of his grace until later in the season, but for the purposes of this story, we'll just pretend he did. ;)

_Singer Salvage, Sioux Falls, South Dakota – April 30, 2010_

It was four forty-five in the morning when the door to Bobby Singer's upstairs guest room creaked open, the sound just loud enough to wake the older of its two occupants in an instant. Dean Winchester, who had been sleeping lightly in the twin bed closest to the door, sprang up with the bowie knife he always kept under his pillow clutched in his hand before his eyes had opened. Having been trained as little more than a soldier since he was very young, Dean was acting purely on instinct now, ready to fight and protect his younger brother before he was even fully aware of it.

But when a tiny beam of light shone through the door from the hall outside, the eldest Winchester's aggression was proved completely unnecessary. Standing in the doorway was not an attacker, but someone who had come to be one of Dean and Sam's closest friends. Castiel, the Angel of Thursdays and proud servant of God, stared at the hunter blankly, his blue eyes almost glowing in the dim light that cast deep shadows around every wrinkle of his rumpled trenchcoat. Dean sighed, lowering the knife down to his side and groaning when he realized who had woken him up.

"Aww, c'mon, Cas… Couldn't you have at least waited 'til sunup to come watch me sleep? You know it creeps me out." He dropped the knife back on the bed, sitting down and rubbing his eyes as the fact that he had just leapt straight up from a dead sleep registered with his body and made him a little lightheaded.

Castiel had been staying with the Winchesters more and more often as the impending threat of the Apocalypse drew nearer. He had been cut off from Heaven a few months ago, and as time passed his angelic abilities were growing steadily weaker. It now took him quite a bit of effort to fly himself from one place to another, and he had begun to develop some slightly human traits, such as the occasional need for food and, on one horrendous occasion, carsickness. The angel had been unfortunate enough to learn about the latter trait in the back seat of the Impala two weeks ago, and only the fact that he had been the one to personally pull Dean's soul from Hell had saved Castiel from certain death via angel blade.

In spite of his unfamiliarity with humanity and his annoyingly blunt honesty, Castiel had somehow grown on the Winchesters and Bobby Singer, their surrogate uncle-slash-substitute father. The angel was unfailingly dedicated to his friends, having rebelled against Heaven itself to fight alongside the two brothers and hopefully stop the Apocalypse that his brethren in Heaven sought to bring about. Bobby hadn't been Castiel's biggest fan in the beginning, seeing as the angel's sudden lack of healing powers had made it impossible to grant the old hunter the use of his legs and he was still stuck in a wheelchair as a result. But now, after months of dealing with Castiel up close and personal, even the crusty old hunter had to admit to having a soft spot for the angel, right alongside the ones he had for Sam and Dean.

"Bobby asked me to wake you two up, since he can't climb the stairs himself," Castiel answered in response to Dean's complaint, completely ignoring the comment about watching Dean sleep. A celestial being like him had no need for sleep at all, and he didn't understand why humans seemed to find the process of losing consciousness each night so enjoyable. As a result, he also did not understand just how frustrating it was to be awoken earlier than necessary when sleep was already such a luxury for the Winchesters. "Now I think you should come downstairs quickly. I'll be waiting there, too." With that, he turned and strode out of the room and down the stairs, somehow managing to move almost as quietly on his feet as he did with his wings.

In the twin bed on the other side of the room, Sam finally stirred, apparently having sunk much deeper into sleep during the night than his brother had. "D'n?" he mumbled sleepily, sitting up and shaking his head to move a few itchy strands of hair out of his face. "Wass goin' on?"

"I dunno," Dean said, scratching his stomach and yawning while he stretched lazily. "Guess we need to go down and see."

Sam grunted an affirmative, no happier than Dean to have been awoken from a deep sleep he had only managed to slip into four hours ago, and climbed out of bed, heading toward the door with a clean shirt already halfway on. Dean snorted with amusement, and Sam turned around to face him, one eyebrow raised.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothin'," Dean said casually. "Just admiring your beautiful hair, Bride of Frankenstein."

Sam glared at him, running his hands back self-consciously through his unruly mop of brown hair and making his way out of the door.

Dean laughed again. "That just made it worse, man."

"Shut it."

By the time Dean and Sam made it downstairs, dressed and relatively well cleaned-up, Bobby and Castiel were already seated at the kitchen table, eating a small breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast. It was still weird to see Cas eating like a regular person; in the past, the most the angel would do was order a coffee when they stopped at a diner, although even then he usually just held it and didn't drink it. Now, though, he was intensely focused on the food in front of him, studiously analyzing each sensation his vessel experienced at the consumption of food (or, in regular-person speak, really enjoying it.) The room was totally silent except for the scrape of silverware on cheap porcelain plates, which surprised neither of the Winchesters; the angel wasn't much of a talker, after all, and Bobby wasn't the world's greatest conversationalist. As soon as Sam and Dean had grabbed some food for themselves and sat down, though, Dean almost immediately broke the silence.

"So why'd you wake us up at the ass-crack of dawn, Bobby? Hopefully it's important," he asked with a tired grin, biting into a piece of bacon and ripping at it as if he was exacting some kind of animalistic vengeance on it.

Bobby scowled at him. "Do ya honestly think I'd be wakin' your asses up if it wasn't important, ya idjit?" He uncrossed his arms from over his chest, taking a bite of toast to hold back whatever other words he might have been about to add to the end of that. To his amusement, Sam noticed Castiel nodding slowly, apparently siding with Bobby on this one. The gesture looked odd on an angel somehow, and when Dean noticed it he glared at Cas before turning his attention back to Bobby.

"Well, no, I just meant… It's not even light out yet, and we're not on a case."

Truth be told, they hadn't been on a real case in a few weeks. Ever since the run-in with Famine and the unfortunate side-effects it had had on Sam and Castiel, everyone had been more than willing to stay at Bobby's, researching the other two Horsemen's potential whereabouts while trying not to bring up any of the unpleasant aftereffects of Sam's demon-blood binge. The episode had definitely set the younger Winchester on edge, which saddened Bobby immensely. Dean and Sam had suffered a lot of damage to their trust in one another recently, but just when it seemed they were making progress toward mending it, that damned Horseman had gone and pushed Sam almost back to square one again. He obviously thought Dean had lost all trust in him again, despite both Dean and Bobby's attempts to tell him otherwise. Like a true Winchester, Sam wasn't going to believe something until he discovered the truth of it for himself.

"You might be," Bobby answered ominously, and Sam sat up straighter immediately, all of his attention on the old hunter now.

"Why? You have a lead on something?"

"I think so, yeah. I just got a call from an acquaintance of mine named Ross Ferguson down in Ada, Oklahoma. He's goin' on sixty-five now, so it's been a while since his last hunt. But he says somethin' weird's goin' down where he's at, and he can't figure out what."

"Any details?" Dean asked, now fully attentive himself and excited at the prospect of another hunt.

"Nothin' definitive yet. All he's got to go on is a few weird suicides in town. All of 'em were men without any prior signs of depression or even unhappiness in their lives. And every single one hanged themselves from their houses' ceilings."

"Suicides? You sure this is our kinda gig, Bobby?" Dean asked, stretching lazily. "I mean, lots of people off themselves for no apparent reason all the time. It's sad and all, but not exactly out of the ordinary."

"Yeah, well in a tiny town like that, seven suicides in two weeks is a big deal, especially since all seven of 'em died the exact same way. And trust me, if Ross says something ain't right, it ain't right. Guy knows his stuff, retired or not."

"Once a hunter, always a hunter," Dean agreed with a quick nod of his head. "So what's the plan? We go down there, figure out why these people are killing themselves, and stop whatever it is?"

" _If_  there's anything out of the ordinary doing it, yes," Castiel added, and all of them turned to stare at him.

"What do you mean, Cas?" Sam asked. "You know something about this?"

"No," the angel answered, plainly regretful of the fact that he could no longer sense the origin of every supernatural event in the world. "But with the start of the Apocalypse getting closer, people are bound to begin acting strangely. Some people are more sensitive than others to disturbances in the spiritual realm, and they'd likely be the first ones affected by the rising of the Horsemen."

"So what, ya think it's Death?" Bobby asked incredulously. "In a tiny town like Ada?"

"I never said I thought it was anything at all," Castiel said icily. "All I know is that if something to do with the Apocalypse  _is_  happening here, we'd be fools to let this opportunity pass us by."

"Well hell, I'm always up for a hunt," Dean said, immediately glad for a chance to see some action again. "Come on, you two, get the lead out! Baby's gotta be as stir-crazy as we are by now!"

Sam just smiled and shook his head, waiting for a couple of minutes while Bobby tracked down a piece of paper and wrote down Ross's phone number and address. When he had slipped them into his wallet, Sam went upstairs to grab his bag, nearly running into Castiel in the middle of the stairs.

"What's up, Cas?" he asked, noting the tense look – or what passed for a tense look – on the angel's face.

"I'm going to retrieve some plastic sacks from the kitchen, since Dean was very adamant about it," he answered in his usual monotone. "He told me I needed them because if I, as he put it, 'lost my breakfast –'"and there were the air quotes again, Sam noticed, " – in his baby again, he would cut off my wings with my own angel-blade and deep-fry them in holy oil. I think he might have been joking, but I'm not completely sure."

Sam winced in sympathy, knowing Dean could be very unforgiving when it came to anyone damaging his car, or sometimes even breathing on it wrong. "Yeah, better safe than sorry, right?"

"I suppose so."

A moment after Castiel disappeared, Dean came out of the bedroom, bags slung over his shoulders and his usual cocky grin plastered across his face. Evidently, he had been a lot more stir-crazy than Sam had thought.

"All right!" he said, spinning the Impala's keys around his index finger. "It's time to go gank some evil sons of bitches! Right, Sammy?"

Sam grinned back, going to grab his own bags and find Castiel while Dean got the Impala started up. "Hell yeah."


	3. It's a Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. I do not own any of the characters, barring any OCs, in this story.
> 
> Author's Note: For those of you who didn't know, Ada, Oklahoma is where I spent the first seven years of my life, and it's still very dear to my heart. With the exception of any OCs' homes that might be mentioned, every place Dean and Sam visit in this story is really there.

The drive down to Ada took just over twelve hours even with four gas-station stops, largely thanks to Dean's lead-footed driving. He stayed at the wheel the entire time, leaving Sam to read an enormous novel he had picked up somewhere – probably at Bobby's – in the passenger seat while Castiel stared out the window in the back. The angel seemed to enjoy watching the scenery pass by, and Sam assumed it was because whenever he usually flew himself somewhere, it was almost instantaneous and never left room for sightseeing. Watching things move so slowly (by Castiel's standards, at least, because Dean was going nearly ninety miles per hour when the speed limit was seventy) probably would be fairly fascinating to someone who hadn't been on the road for their entire life.

As usual, the cassette player blared classic rock the whole way, leaving little room for talking over the noise of the radio speakers. That may have been a good thing, though; no one was really sure what to say to each other lately, especially Dean and Sam. No matter how they might start a conversation, it would inevitably dissolve into a discussion about the Apocalypse and the Four Horsemen, which naturally led to Sam retreating inward to stew over his still-fresh feelings of guilt for being led astray by Famine. Cas and Dean could do nothing to change his feelings on the subject, either, and they had given up trying in favor of avoiding the topic entirely. As Dean had recently told the angel when they were alone, "Sam'll pull his head out of his ass when he's good and ready, and not a second before. It's annoying, but it's a Winchester thing." Castiel hadn't been able to think of a retort for that.

At a little after six p.m., the Impala rumbled into town, its polished black exterior glistening brightly in the evening sun as it sped by a tiny car dealership and a run-down hotel called  _The Budget Inn_. A little farther up Broadway Avenue was another motel called  _The Economy Inn_ , which Dean pulled the car up next to immediately once he noticed that there was a diner directly beside it. It took only about a minute and a half to get a room – apparently business was slow this time of year – and then he parked the Impala right outside the door and everyone got out to grab their bags.

"So, you guys hungry?" Dean asked hopefully, grimacing when his stomach growled loudly enough for both Sam and Castiel to hear. The restaurant next door,  _JD's Café and Cafeteria_ , had a sign out front promoting their burgers and pie, and Dean really wanted to go see if they were worth advertising.

"I could eat, yeah," Sam said as he hoisted his duffel over his shoulder. "Maybe we can do some research while we're there, too." Castiel nodded in agreement, and Dean grinned broadly at the prospect of the delicious pies awaiting less than a hundred yards away.

"Awesome."

* * *

_JD's_  wasn't the poshest place they'd ever eaten at, but it certainly wasn't the worst. The décor seemed to be based on the design of a lot of seventies cafeterias, with pieces of wooden lattice dividing the tops of the booths and dark wooden planks adorning all of the walls. The cushions of the chairs and booth seats were a dark maroon color, as were the curtains on the few narrow windows that faced the street outside. The occasional artificial plant could be seen on the shelves, as well as several empty coffee pots, but there wasn't much by way of decoration otherwise. There were a few spots where water had damaged the plaster ceiling tiles, turning them an ugly, cracked brown in several circular areas, but the tables and dishes looked clean and the wait staff were all friendly. Much to Dean's relief, the food looked good too.

"So," Sam asked as he opened his laptop on the table. "All we know so far is that seven people have killed themselves in town in the past fifteen days, and all of them have been men. That doesn't really give us much to go on, but let's narrow it down a little."

"There are several things that can manipulate humans in order to kill them," Castiel said thoughtfully. "Sirens, banshees, and crocottas all use their voices to lure people to their deaths."

"Yeah, but crocottas just suck out their souls. They don't make people hang themselves," said Dean, mentally striking that particular creature off of his list. "What about… Nah, djinn would've kept their victims alive longer, and there would've been puncture wounds…"

"It could also have been a demon or a vengeful spirit," Sam mumbled as he continued to type things into his computer.

"Alright, well I say right now there's too much we still don't know," Dean said, slapping his palms down on the table in frustration. "We'll go talk to that Ross guy as soon as we get done eating, but until then I don't think there's much else we can do."

"I guess not," Sam agreed, closing his computer and watching with mild disgust as Dean picked up the cheeseburger he had ordered and took an enormous, jaw-stretching bite.

"Oh, man…" he said happily through a mouthful of meat and cheese. "Sammy, you gotta try this."

"No thanks," Sam said with an amused smile, taking a bite of the salad he had gotten from the salad bar. The younger Winchester had been pleasantly surprised to notice that the lettuce and vegetables in his and Castiel's salads were crisp and fresh, unlike what was usually served at the restaurants they frequented. "I'd like to keep my arteries open past the age of forty, thanks."

"Pshh. Whatever. If I die from eating burgers, at least I'll die happy. You'll have nothing to look back on but vegetables, Mr. Jolly Green Giant."

Sam just smiled and rolled his eyes.

"There's nothing wrong with salads, you know," a female voice said from behind them. She had a bit of a Southern drawl to her words, but it was barely noticeable unless one really listened for it. "I'd say we have pretty good ones here, after all."

Dean spun around, prepared to ask why some stranger was butting into their conversation, when he realized it was only their waitress bringing them the pie and coffee they had all ordered for dessert. It must have been his lucky day because she was a looker, too. She had curly chocolate-colored hair tied back in a loose ponytail, pouty pink lips, a tiny nose, and deep brown eyes, as well as a tiny waist and full hips and chest. All of that, combined with the fact that she was holding several plates of pie, made Dean take interest in her immediately.

"Well, I'm a burger kinda guy," he answered with a shrug, watching hungrily as she set the plates down on the table. "Especially this one. I may have to get another one just 'cause I love it so much."

"I can get you one to go if you want," the woman said. According to the metallic pin on her shirt, her name was Valerie. "I wouldn't want you to run out of room for this pie."

Dean gave her his best smile, softening his eyes in a way that always had women eating out of the palm of his hand. "Sweetheart, there's always room for pie." He took a bite of the cherry-filled pastry in front of him, closing his eyes and moaning in a way that probably should have been outlawed in public. "Oh, God, that's good. I knew this was the right place to eat."

Valerie blushed a little, fiddling with the hem of her shirt before looking over her shoulder as if checking for someone. "Um…" she said, after a minute. "I'm really not supposed to do this, Mr…"

"Dean," he answered. "Call me Dean. And this is Sam and Cas. Tiel. Castiel," he corrected when he caught the frigid look the angel gave him at being introduced as "Cas."

"Nice to meet you, Sam and Castiel. Okay, Dean. I'm not really supposed to do this, but if you like it that much, it's on the house tonight."

"Really?" Dean said with a little more enthusiasm than was probably required. "That's pretty generous."

"Well, there is a  _tiny_  little catch…" she added, pulling her order pad out of her shirt pocket with a shy smile. She handed Dean the tiny slip of paper with her name and phone number scribbled down on it in light, curvy handwriting. "I'd like to get a drink with you sometime, if you're interested. You're really pretty cute."

Sam started to laugh and nearly choked on the bite of apple pie he'd been eating, coughing harshly into his napkin before he took several quick sips of water.

"Is he okay?" Valerie asked, concerned.

"I'm fine," Sam croaked while Dean rolled his eyes and whacked him on the back a few times.

"Anyway," Dean said once he was sure his brother wasn't about to die, "I'd love to get a drink with you. I'll give you a call when I get a minute away from my job." He scribbled down one of his many cell phone numbers and handed it to her

"Sounds good. I'll get that burger ready for you. Enjoy the pie, guys!"

"Will do," Dean answered, taking another large bite and closing his eyes as he savored the flavor of the cherry filling.

After placing the to-go order with the kitchen, Valerie stepped into the back room reserved for employees, searching out her purse so she could put Dean's phone number in her wallet. Just as she picked it up, a strange black smoke began seeping through the vent, billowing out in a long cloud as if blown by invisible winds. She dashed over toward the fire alarm, thinking something had gone wrong with the wiring in the ceiling, but before she could pull it the smoke had rushed toward her, pushing open her mouth and pouring inside with a low hiss. It tasted like sulfur and smelled like something dead and rotting, and no matter how she struggled to back away from it, it simply kept coming until all of it had entered her body.

The young woman stood still for a minute, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Then her eyes flew open, shining jet-black under the bright lights of the room. She picked up the slightly crumpled slip of paper she had dropped on the floor, and a sinister smile spread across her pink lips.

"Dean Winchester, hmm?" she said quietly, stuffing the paper down into her purse and collecting her jacket and car keys. "It's a date."


	4. The World May Never Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. I do not own anyone, barring any OCs, in this story.

The road to Ross Ferguson's house was long, hilly, and winding, trailing through the woods about as far from town as one could get and still be considered part of Ada. The dusty gravel roads crunched noisily under the Impala's tires, and Dean prayed that he wouldn't get a rock jammed through one of them. There wasn't enough room in the trunk to fit a spare tire along with all the bags and weapons, and last thing they needed was to be stranded out here in the middle of nowhere so some unknown supernatural creature could get the jump on them.

It was getting dark outside now, which made the already-faded house numbers that were hung on signs or painted on mailboxes even harder to see. Dean and Sam kept a lookout for the address Bobby had written down, while Castiel made himself useful by watching for any woodland creatures that might stray into the path of the Impala. Already, he had saved them from hitting two deer, somehow sensing the animals' presence before they were close enough to be visible to the humans. Whatever the reason, Dean was immensely grateful; he'd just polished his baby, and the last thing he needed was to crash into a deer and wreck her.

Just before nine o'clock, after nearly an hour of traversing the enormous hills on gravel trails that barely passed as roads and having to turn around several times when they hit dead ends, they found the place they were looking for. It was nothing flashy, just a tiny brown ranch house off Monte Vista Road that was nestled in a dense copse of trees. But a real house was a lot more than most hunters, excluding Bobby, were used to, and Dean secretly envied the retired hunter for it already. He stopped the car while Sam got out to open the gate, but something appeared to be wrong because Sam was just standing there, staring at the metal pipe fence as if it was the most fascinating thing he'd seen all day.

"Sam? What's up, man? Get the lead out," Dean called after cracking the driver's side door slightly.

"Um, I can't," Sam answered slowly. "Gonna need the bolt cutters."

"That seems strange," Castiel muttered as he and Dean got out to join Sam. "Why would the gate still be padlocked if he was expecting us?" He tilted his head, staring up at the house, and narrowed his blue eyes suspiciously. "The lights are off, too."

"I dunno, but we're about to find out," Dean answered, opening the trunk and retrieving the desired tool. "I'd say we should just hop the fence – hell, Sam could probably step over it – but I'm not leaving my baby out here in the middle of the road." He stopped talking for a moment, grunting while he cut through the metal of the combination padlock. "There we go. Anyway, we don't know if we'll need her, and his house is too far from the road if we had to run back here."

"Agreed," Sam said, deciding to walk up to the house with Castiel while Dean found an out-of-the-way place to park the Impala. It took a few moments, since he had to make sure he didn't scratch the paint on any tree limbs in the dark, but eventually the car was well-concealed and Dean jogged over to join them, carrying his and Sam's favorite guns and an iron machete for Castiel. The angel had no experience with guns, and hunters, especially older ones, weren't the most trusting people. Dean didn't think it'd be a good idea to have him accidentally firing it around a man who might not still be totally sane.

"Alright, ready?" Dean asked when Sam and Castiel had accepted the weapons from his outstretched hands. He was already creeping toward the house, gun holstered in the waistband of his jeans and flashlight easily accessible.

"Wait," said Castiel, holding out a hand to stop the two of them from picking the lock on the door. "I'll go first. I don't need to open the door to get inside, and humans can't kill me without an angel blade."

"Okay. Be careful, Cas," Sam said, and Castiel nodded and disappeared in an instant. Flying himself across the world, or even across the state, was too taxing without access to most of his grace, but he could still go short distances with no ill effects. While Castiel investigated the inside of the house, Dean and Sam waited just outside the front door, listening for anything that might indicate trouble. Time seemed to drag on forever, stretching what must have been only a minute or two into what felt like hours.

"You think he's alright?" Sam asked after they still hadn't heard a sound from inside, nor seen a light being turned on.

"Yeah. Probably just being thorough," Dean whispered.

As if in response to their conversation, the deadbolt slowly began to turn in the door, the handle twisting at the same time until the heavy piece of metal – iron, Dean noticed idly – swung open on well-oiled hinges and revealed their trenchcoat-clad friend standing awkwardly in the entryway. Just by his grim expression, they could tell he had found something he didn't like. And when they stepped inside, they didn't even have to ask what it was.

The smell that wafted out to greet them was one that most people wouldn't – and shouldn't – recognize, and one that both Dean and Sam knew better than the scent of their own deodorants. It was the sickly-sweet, meaty reek of a recently deceased and rapidly decaying body.

"Oh,  _that_  can't be good," Dean muttered, completely ignoring the oh-so-human instincts that told him to run  _away_  from the sickening smell and instead following it toward its source, a small bedroom at the back of the house. Along the way he checked each darkened room, making sure whatever had killed the retired hunter wasn't still waiting here to ambush them from behind. Sam and Castiel followed close behind him, watching and listening for any source of danger, as he crept inside and turned on the light. When it illuminated the room, Dean sighed and wrinkled his nose at the sight before him, saddened but not at all surprised. "Nope, definitely not good."

Ross was hanging by the neck from the ceiling, kept aloft by a long, braided leather strap that had been coiled tightly around both his throat and the ceiling fan. Ironically, the sturdy construction of the hunter's house had insured that it held his weight instead of pulling out of the plaster. His skin was a dark gray-blue, his empty eyes bulging and bloodshot, and his swollen lips were parted just enough for his bluish tongue to poke through, showing how disproportionately large it had become with the lack of circulation even after death.

Dean really hated hangings. As far as murders went, they were some of the cleanest he and Sam ever dealt with. No blood, no viscera, no unrecognizable carcass to contend with. But having had the life almost choked out of him several times – and he had nothing on how many times it'd been attempted on Sam by some creature or another – he knew that it was also incredibly slow, panicky and painful. Nope, absolutely not. Give him death by a bullet or a Wendigo's claws any day over that.

"Well, great," Sam said as he found a chair and stood high enough to begin cutting the corpse down. "Whatever he was going to tell us is useless now."

"I'm sorry," Castiel said as Ross was cut loose and he and Dean gently gathered the limp body into their arms. "I should have gone ahead to ensure his safety, instead of staying with you to eat at the diner."

"Don't be ridiculous," Dean said quietly. "It's not any more your fault than it is ours. We all shoulda been here sooner, but we weren't. And this guy's dead because of it."

Sam gave his brother a sideways look, not liking how this conversation was going. "Dean, how were we supposed to know –"

"Because a hunter all but said he was freaked out about something, Sammy, and that's a warning we should listen to whether he's retired or not!" He sighed, feeling the burger he had eaten earlier shifting uneasily in his belly as it made room for the guilt to move in. "Dammit all. Well, nothing we can do now. Let's burn him, at least, and then we can go to the morgue and see if any of the other victims' bodies are still there. One died yesterday and one a few days before, so there's a pretty good chance at least one of the seven hasn't been cremated yet."

Sam nodded, jogging out to the car to fetch the lighter fluid and matches while Dean and Castiel carried Ross's body out toward the woods. He had almost popped open the trunk when he heard Castiel calling for him to bring the EMF meter, his angelically-aided voice carrying through the trees as easily as it would have over water. He ran over to meet them, wondering if they'd discovered some kind of clue and not disappointed when Dean gestured to a slow trickle of dark sludge dripping from the corner of Ross's blue lips. Ectoplasm; a vengeful spirit, then.

"Looks like a ghost possession, Sam," Dean said tiredly, shaking his head and turning Ross's head on his stiff neck enough that more tar-like liquid dripped out of his mouth. "Scan him for me, would you?"

"Yeah. Sure." Sam waved the EMF meter over the body, watching for some kind of sign of possession, but there was not a single indication that it was even turned on, let alone picking up EMF. "Weird. Hold on, let me check the house."

"I'll come with you," Castiel said quietly, and Sam didn't protest. It didn't take long for them to scan the entirety of the house, maybe twenty minutes, and just like with the corpse there was absolutely no trace of electromagnetic activity. Whatever had possessed or attacked Ross was long gone. But how had it gotten in if the door was made of iron?

"Sam, I think I found something," Castiel's voice said from a room down the hall. How had he gotten so far away without a sound? The angel could really put the capital C in "creepy" when he did things like that, and it made Sam glad he wasn't their enemy.

But Cas had been right. When he reached the guest bedroom, a cool breeze coming from somewhere outside blew in, ruffling his hair and Castiel's trenchcoat. When he flipped the light on, the reason became clear. Someone, likely Ross or whoever was in his body, had thrown a large rock through the window from outside, littering the floor with broken glass before they reached inside and unlocked it to climb through. An iron door was no good at keeping anything out if the wind disturbed the salt lines on the windows.

"Well, that answers that," Sam said wearily, pocketing the EMF meter and turning around to head back outside. "Good job, Cas. Let's tell Dean what we found."

"Yes, we sh –" Castiel's eyes widened a fraction of an inch as he felt a chill shoot up his spine, making him shudder for a fraction of a second.

"Cas?" Sam asked, immediately alert for danger. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Castiel said when the feeling passed less than a second later. "I think it was just another unfamiliar sensation from my vessel. I'm sorry for worrying you."

"Don't worry about it," Sam said, immensely relieved to hear that it was nothing. "Let's go tell Dean what we found."

As they made their way out to find his older brother, he inwardly sighed. Could nothing ever be simple? At almost that instant, he saw Ross's body go up in flames, hearing Dean curse when a small section of his flannel shirt lit up as well. That got a chuckle out of Sam, and Dean glared at him when he finally got the tiny flame extinguished.

" _Who am I kidding?_ " he thought solemnly, watching the greedy orange flames licking at the already blackening corpse. " _Nothing's ever simple with us._ "

He just hoped they would be able to solve this case before any more lives were lost.


	5. Angels Can Act, Too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. I do not own any of the characters, barring any OCs, in this story.
> 
> A/N: Phew! Sorry for the long gap between updates. I haven't had writer's block that bad in a while. Hopefully this slightly longer chapter will make up for the wait though. Enjoy! :D

By the time the Winchesters and Castiel reached Mercy Hospital, it was already almost eleven p.m. They'd taken the time to swing back by the motel and put on their FBI disguises, making sure to conceal their guns inside the jackets along with their forged badges. They'd even whipped up a quick badge for Castiel, convincing him to leave his trenchcoat behind so that the suit he wore underneath would match more closely to theirs. He had seemed extremely uncomfortable without it, fidgeting as he rode in the back of the Impala and moving his hands like he was trying to pull the coat around himself before he realized it wasn't there. Dean just smirked and shook his head; Cas could sometimes be really funny even when he wasn't trying.

It didn't take them long to convince the receptionist to direct them to the morgue, and within a few minutes they were standing in the chilly room, waiting for the old coroner to show them the body of the one man who hadn't yet been cremated or returned to his family for burial. No matter how many times he visited the hospital morgue – and Sam had visited plenty in his relatively short life – it never got any easier to ignore the depressing feeling of the cold room full of slowly rotting corpses. Something about it, perhaps how clinically sterile and white everything was, seemed even sadder than a freshly dug grave in a cemetery, as though the dead were simply waiting here in limbo for someone to finally stop tampering with them and let them go to rest.

It was an odd thought, when he really considered it. After all, if someone was dead they had left their body, so what did they care where it was? He had been dead for a few days himself once, and Dean had been full-on killed, buried, and then resurrected a year ago. Neither of them found any kind of poetic justice in where they were laid to rest. Dead was dead was dead. So maybe it just mattered to the ones still alive. Yes, that must be it, he decided as the coroner pulled out the pale corpse labeled "Turner, Phillip" from the cooler and hauled it onto an even colder steel table.

"So, what got you fellas interested in these suicides?" the coroner – Marvin, his nametag read – asked Dean while he got the body properly laid out under the light that hung over the table. "It's not often we get Feds down here in a little town like this." Sam and Dean both paused for a second, noticing a slightly unsettling resemblance between this man's face and Jimmy Novak's; his hair was the same dark brown, and when Marvin nonchalantly peeled back one of the man's eyelids to check something, they saw that even the eyes were the same color. If Castiel noticed, however, he said nothing.

"Uh, we were already in the area when we caught word of all the recent deaths," Dean finally answered while Castiel and Sam stood to the side and slightly behind him. "Since all of the victims have been single males, our supervisor's worried it might be a serial killer," he added in a hushed voice, as though sharing some great secret with the old man. "But if it is, we still don't know how he's choosing them, and we're trying to find a pattern. You didn't see anything unusual about these men other than the fact that they hanged themselves?"

Sam idly noticed that his brother always spoke a little more formally when the two of them were wearing their FBI disguises. Sam could slip into that type of language without much thought, since he'd had to practice it so much in his pre-law classes at Stanford, but he had no idea whether Dean had to put a conscious effort into it or not. Either way, he always seemed a lot more comfortable in the fake-Fed role than Sam. Then again, maybe that was just because Dean always seemed pretty comfortable with anything  _period_.

"Well," Marvin said slowly, tapping his fingers along the victim's chest like it was the top of a desk. "There was a little bit of dark-colored fluid in all their mouths when we swabbed them. When we tested it, it came up chemically similar to blood. The only thing is, people usually don't bleed from the mouth with these types of deaths; in fact, there shouldn't be any blood vessels broken at all, except those in the face and eyes. See?" He opened one of Phillip's eyes, displaying several ruptured capillaries around the deep blue iris. A quick look passed unnoticed between the two brothers, and Castiel nodded slowly as he filed the information away for later.

"Okay," Sam said, wanting to contribute a bit to this conversation as well. "Anything else?"

"Not that I could see. And I don't know if this is helpful at all, but I don't think these guys shoulda died so young. I know I didn't know any of 'em real well or anything, but from the few times I'd met 'em around town, they sure didn't look like the type to off themselves just like that. I sure hope it wasn't a killer, though. They'd have to be a sick, twisted kind of person to think up something like this."

"Yes, they would," Castiel agreed quietly, eyeing the prone form on the table with pity.

"Well, thanks for your time, Marvin," Dean said, snapping his small notebook shut and tucking it into the pocket of his dress shirt. "Hopefully this'll open some new leads for us."

"Any time," said the old man, already picking up the body so that he could return it to the cooler. "And good luck."

* * *

"Okay, so it looks like there was ectoplasm in all of the corpses," Sam said as they strode down the long hallway toward the basement stairwell. "That'd mean whatever killed Ross is probably causing all the rest of these so-called suicides too."

"Yeah, but what I can't figure out is why some ghost would want them all dead. I mean, they weren't married, so they couldn't have been cheating on anyone. And you said their police records all came up clean, right? So they're not hurting anyone that we know of."

"They were not hurting anyone," Castiel said calmly. "I could sense that much about Ross and this Phillip Turner. There was no evil lingering anywhere near their souls."

"Alright, well, I think we've at least narrowed it down to a spirit," Sam said, rubbing his eyes tiredly as they headed toward the stairwell. "Now we just need to find out a motive. First thing tomorrow, we'll see what kinds of records we can find on hanging suicides in this town. Oh, and we should call Bobby and find out if Ross was ever involved in anything like this before."

"Good plan," Dean said with a yawn. "And hey, maybe we'll finish this up in time for me to take that Valerie girl up on her offer of drinks."

" _…ful…_ "

Castiel stopped short, listening to the sound that had echoed just behind him in the stairwell. It had been soft, no stronger than a whisper of wind, but he was sure that it was speaking to him. A moment later, it came again.

" _…ful… faithful…_ "

"What?" he muttered, causing Sam and Dean to turn around and look at him strangely.

"Cas? What's up, man?" Dean asked impatiently.

Castiel ignored them, still focusing on the sound that they apparently could not hear.

" _…faith… ful… Unfaith… ful…_ "

"Un…faithful?" he repeated, trying to puzzle out the meaning behind the word.

"Cas. Cas!"

That finally got the angel's attention, and as soon as it did the sound ceased completely. "I apologize, I… thought I heard something," he answered slowly, shaking his head as if to shoo away a bothersome insect. "I must have imagined it."

Sam hummed low in his throat, his eyebrows knitting together in concern. Castiel had felt something earlier that night, too, and neither he nor Dean had seen what it was then either. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine. I must be more tired than I realized."

"Angels getting tired? It really is a sign of the Apocalypse," Dean joked humorlessly. "Come on, then. Let's head back to the motel and get you to bed before you start telling me you see dead people."

That reference was completely lost on Castiel, but he followed along anyway. They had almost made it to the lobby door when they came across a police officer, who up until that point had been standing around chatting with one of the nurses while he turned in his evening paperwork. The moment he saw Dean, though, something in his expression changed, and he advanced on Sam and Dean with a fierce gleam in his eye. Castiel had somehow managed to shrink back into the shadows, shedding his suit jacket and tossing it away without anyone noticing he was even there.

"Crap," Dean muttered, knowing that when a cop got that look in his eye it was never a good thing.

"Don't I know you from somewhere?" the man asked slowly, eyeing Dean up and down while his gray handlebar mustache twitched from side to side.

"I, uh, don't think so," Dean answered slowly, feeling Sam tense up beside him when he realized they were heading into dangerous territory and fast.

"No, I'm sure I…" His eyes widened, and then he glared at Dean with more venom than he'd thought a tired old cop could muster. "Wait, that's right. There were a couple other feds down here the other day, but they weren't you two. Why would they need four Feds working on the same case?"

Dean gulped audibly. He really hated when things like this happened. "What? What are you talking about?"

The cop narrowed his eyes at them. "Let's see some I.D., fellas."

They handed their badges over without complaint, and he scanned over every detail before raising his eyebrow at them. "Agent Rosewood and Agent Taggart? You can't be serious."

Sam closed his eyes and inwardly cursed; of course Dean would pick names from  _Beverly Hills Cop_. He watched nervously, waiting to see what the older man would do to him and his brother, when they were suddenly saved by a loud crash in the hallway. Whirling around, he saw Castiel bracing himself against a now-empty medical cart, seeming as if he was only on his feet because of the metal frame gripped tightly in his hands.

"Cas?" Dean asked with immediate concern while the nurses and the cop turned their attention to him. He started to advance toward the angel and Castiel widened his eyes, staring hard at the Winchesters before angling his glance toward the lobby doors. The message was clear: " _Get out of here. I'll handle this._ "

A moment later Cas staggered back a few steps, gasping in a sharp breath as his hands drifted up to hold his head.

"Sir, are you alright?" one of the nurses asked, placing a tentative hand on his shoulder as he swayed on the spot.

"I… don' know," he said with the slightest hint of a slur in his words. "I f-feel –" Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed into their waiting arms in a boneless heap. The nurses and the cop were all over him in an instant, and Sam and Dean took that as their cue to leave, beating a hasty retreat out to the Impala while the hospital staff ineffectually tried to rouse their angelic friend.

When he'd pulled out of the parking lot, Dean laughed to himself as he imagined how annoyed Castiel must be with all these people poking and prodding him while he did his best to fake unconsciousness. A proud smile crossed his lips, and he pushed the gas pedal a little harder as he took them back toward the motel.

"Good one, Cas. Good one."


	6. Dead and Breakfast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. Sadly, I do not own any of these guys.

Dean had just finished a solemn phone conversation with Bobby when Castiel appeared in the motel room the three of them were sharing. He looked extremely irritated as he shrugged his suit jacket back on and then his trenchcoat, and Dean couldn't help but snicker when he noticed the pulse oximeter still dangling off the tip of his right index finger. Apparently the nurses at Mercy Hospital worked pretty fast. That was good to know in case something would go wrong, but hopefully they wouldn't actually need to use that information. He opened his mouth to tease Castiel a little about his brief hospital visit, but thought better of it when he remembered that it was because of him and Sam in the first place. Better not piss off the nerdy angel.

"So, Dean," Castiel said when he'd plucked the small device off of his finger and placed it on the bedside table for the Winchesters to add to their first aid kit. "What did Bobby have to say?"

"Nothing useful yet," Dean answered with a sigh, flopping down onto the couch and punching his thin pillow to fluff it up a little more.

Sam shot him a sideways look but said nothing. If Dean wanted to take the couch and leave the other bed for the angel, that was his business. Not to mention speaking up was likely to land him outside to sleep in the car for the night, and squashing all of his six-and-a-half-foot self in there lying down was almost impossible. Needless to say, the bed was worth a lot more than teasing his brother.

Dean continued speaking, oblivious to the smirk on Sam's face. "As far as Bobby knows, Ross never worked a case like this before. All hunters might piss off a spirit or two just because they're hunters, I guess, but it's definitely weird for him to go down just like all these regular people." He looked over at Sam, who still hadn't said anything or even looked up from the computer screen he'd been staring at for hours. "Hey, Poindexter, you got anything to add here?"

Sam blinked tiredly, sitting up straight and stretching the stiffness out of his muscles. "I actually think I might, yeah."

"Well how about sharing with the class?"

"I was going to," Sam said with a glare at his older brother. "I just wanted to make sure I had something worth sharing first. Take a look at this."

Dean yawned tiredly and forced himself up from the couch, and he and Castiel came over to look at whatever Sam had found. On the computer screen was a Facebook page belonging to Valerie Sanders, the waitress at J.D.'s Café who had given Dean her number the day before.

"What's this, Sammy? You doin' a background check on this girl before I go out for drinks with her or something?"

"Funny," the younger Winchester said with a smirk. "No, I think I might have just found our first real lead."

Sam clicked a picture in the center of the page, enlarging it so that it took up most of the screen, and Castiel's eyes narrowed at what he saw. Valerie was standing beside a man outside the café, her arm around his waist in a friendly hug while they both smiled for the camera. He looked to be close to thirty-five or forty, with dark hair and blue eyes.

"Is that who I think it is?" Dean asked slowly as he stared at the photo. "Because it sure looks a hell of a lot like that Phillip Turner we saw in the morgue four hours ago."

"Bingo," Sam said, shrinking the picture again so he could click something else. "And look here." He opened a few more photos from an album she had titled "Customers" and scrolled through the six most recent. They were all exact matches for the photos of the other six victims, albeit with more color in their skin than the photos from the medical examiner's reports.

"So you think she has something to do with these 'suicides?'" Dean asked slowly, dread building in his gut as he realized he might have just hit on a woman who loved killing single men.

"I don't know," said Sam, rubbing his temples and sighing. "But look at the dates these photos were posted. Every single one was uploaded on the exact day the man died. Even if it isn't Valerie doing this, it might be something following her, or the diner itself."

"Awesome," Dean muttered, making his way back to the couch and laying down with a tired sigh. "Well, wake me before they open, then. It looks like we're gonna have to check this out one way or another. And if that son of a bitch is at the diner we'll take it out."

He just hoped they wouldn't have to take the girl out, too.

* * *

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary as the three men sat down to breakfast at J.D.'s later that morning. The food was delicious, and Dean had awoken more ravenous than usual, so he was currently tucking into his second plate of biscuits and gravy with bacon and eggs. Sam had stuck to his usual short-stack and coffee, and Castiel had opted for some fruit along with eggs and toast. They were hanging around to see if Valerie had arrived for her shift yet, hoping she would come by their table at some point so Dean could set up a date with her for the evening.

According to their first server, who they hadn't even bothered to learn the name of, Valerie's shift didn't start until ten-thirty. It was currently ten-twenty. Dean hoped she would be on time, since the three of them weren't exactly the world's chattiest people and sitting there staring at each other in silence while they waited might look a little odd.

Luckily it appeared that Valerie was a model employee, and she showed up at exactly ten twenty-eight and was out waiting tables by ten twenty-nine. She spotted the three men right away and was at their table almost instantly, chocolate-brown curls swishing in time with her hips as she sashayed over to refill their cups of coffee. Dean smiled warmly as she approached. He really hoped this girl wasn't evil, because she was definitely someone worth staring at.

"Dean, Sam, Castiel," she said with a smile, pouring coffee into all of their mugs and offering packets of sugar and creamer from the pockets of her apron. "Good to see you again so soon."

"The food's pretty amazing," Sam said with an appreciative nod at the fluffy pancakes that had been all but vaporized from his plate.

"That it is," she replied. "So are you ready for your check, or are you staying around until the pies are done?"

This last comment was obviously meant only for Dean, and he gave her a seductive smile while he leaned toward her on his elbows like he was about to divulge some great secret.

"Actually, Valerie, I came here to ask if you wanna go out for those drinks tonight. My treat?"

"Oh, well, uh, sure," she said with a slight reddening of her cheeks. "Yeah, I'd like that. But… how about you just come to my place?" She leaned down to whisper in his ear, her lips and tongue millimeters away from brushing against the skin. "Say, around seven? We can have dinner, a little wine, and then we'll just see how the night goes, hmm?"

"Sounds like a date," Dean said, somehow managing to keep his voice from shaking even though having her so close to him was causing pleasant chills to shoot from his head to his toes. "Seven it is."

"Great. I'll see you then." She placed the check on the table between them, picking up their dirty plates and striding back to the kitchen with an even more obvious sway to her hips.

Sam watched with a dazed look in his eye, shaking his head when she'd turned the corner and eyeing his brother jealously. Sometimes it kinda sucked not to be as big a flirt as Dean was. Especially if it turned out that this girl had nothing to do with the recent deaths. That would most  _definitely_  suck.

* * *

They had just exited through the front door when Castiel heard something strange, no louder than the wind passing by but definitely different.

_…ful… …faithful… Unfaithful…_

"Sam, Dean, do you hear that?" the angel asked softly, suddenly rigid as he tilted his head from one side to the other to try and hear the voice better.

"Hear what, Cas?" Sam asked, trying to listen as well and only picking up sounds from the early morning traffic on the road in front of them.

"That voice. It's the same one I heard last night at the hospital. It keeps saying 'unfaithful,' but I have no idea what that could mean."

"I don't hear anything, man," Dean said, shrugging apologetically. "You think maybe it's on the same frequency as Angel Radio or something?"

"I don't know. But I think this girl may have something to do with the deaths after all. This presence feels exactly the same as the one from the hospital and Ross's home."

"Great," Dean muttered. "I made a date with a friggin' murderer. Well, let's go check out her house before she gets home. I wanna know what I'm getting into if I'm gonna be there alone with her after dark."

"Do you know where she lives?" Castiel asked. "I thought she only gave you her phone number."

"She did," Sam said, holding up a slip of paper with something scrawled messily on it. "But thanks to her little addiction to Facebook, we don't need to ask."

"Awesome!" said Dean, snatching up the paper and reading over it while he started the Impala and let the other two climb in and close the doors. "Then let's go see if we can gank us a ghost."

* * *

It turned out that Valerie Sanders lived only a few minutes away from her job, in a little one-story house just off the main road that ran in front of J.D.'s and The Economy Inn. The house was surrounded by trees, but not buried in them like Ross's had been, and they seemed to have been chopped down in an orderly fashion to accommodate the house without removing any more foliage than necessary.

It looked ordinary enough – no dead plants other than a few flowers that were about to go out of season, the white paint pristine if a little yellowed under the corners of the gutter, and a small vegetable garden, all in-season, planted beside the front porch. Still, just as a precaution, they had parked the Impala out of sight, hidden in a mostly overgrown driveway on the street behind the house. It wouldn't do to have any concerned neighbors tipping her off, after all.

"Doesn't look too psychopathic so far," Dean commented, examining a basket of purple flowers hanging from a small hook by the front door.

"They usually don't," Sam said as he searched for anything out of the ordinary. "Most people know it's pretty hard to avoid suspicion if your house screams 'serial killer.'" He paused, standing from where he had been crouched by the puppy-shaped welcome mat, and turned to Castiel. "You getting anything weird here, Cas?"

"Maybe," the angel answered, staring hard at something they apparently could not sense. "I can't tell what yet, but there seems to be at least an object with some supernatural influence, if not some kind of creature. I think we need to look inside. I'll unlock the door, so wait here."

An instant later he was gone, and it took no more than a few seconds before the tumblers in the door clicked into place and allowed it to swing open. Sam and Dean hurried inside, closing the door before anyone from the two houses nearby could see them, and locked the deadbolt too. They held their shotguns close to them as they walked deeper into the house, rock salt rounds at the ready should any specters decide to try and catch them off guard. Castiel kept watch as well, his angelic senses still very useful even though they were weakened.

So far, though, everything seemed to be completely normal. Valerie kept a tidy house, with only the slightest signs of being inhabited by anyone at all. A few stray shirts from her work uniforms sat discarded around the living room and dining room, two draped over the back of the leather sofa and one across a dining chair. Several books were laid out on the coffee table, some open but most closed and stacked on one edge, and a half-full coffee mug sat beside one of the largest open books.

"You and Cas go check the kitchen," Dean whispered to Sam. "I'll get the bedroom."

Sam rolled his eyes and smirked but left anyway, Castiel close behind. Dean made his way back toward the bedroom, eyes scanning the dim hall as he waited for any sign that he was being watched. Again, nothing leapt out at him, and when he reached the bedroom he was surprised to notice how ordinary it was. A king-sized bed covered in a goose-down comforter and at least ten pillows sat in the center of the back wall, beneath an enormous picture of a rose garden painted by someone Dean had never heard of. There were a few bookcases, a makeup table, and a dresser, all made of dark wood, and an intricately-carved wooden cross hung beside the door to the master bathroom.

Besides all the books laying out on the bookshelves and a few modern-art statues that he couldn't make heads or tails of, there was absolutely nothing of interest about the room, and Dean actually found himself slightly disappointed. He had expected something a little… edgier, or at least sexier. This room looked a little like it belonged to a preacher's daughter or someone's grandmother, not somewhere to stay up all night doing… whatever it was they planned on doing after the dinner and drinks tonight.

He had just finished examining the room from top to bottom and was about to call this lead a bust when he heard Sam's voice coming from the direction of the living room.

"Dean? You'd better come look at this."


	7. Witchy Woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. I do not own any of the characters, barring any OCs, in this story.
> 
> A/N: I finally updated this again! Woo! Okay, so I apologize in advance, but this one is very dialogue/exposition-heavy. It was a necessary evil. After this, there will be one more main chapter and a short epilogue. So please, enjoy the rest of this case-fic.

_"Dean? You'd better come look at this."_

Sam was sitting on the couch by the coffee table when Dean located him, Castiel standing awkwardly just off to the side and looking curiously at whatever Sam had found. Looking closer, he realized it was an old leather-bound book, which in and of itself wasn't that strange; people collected things like that all the time just because they thought old books looked cool. But when he got a closer look at what was scrawled on the thick yellow pages, he groaned and sank down on the couch beside his brother.

The book was filled with spells, both white and black magic, as well as several recipes for potions and medicines made from herbs that did not even carry those names anymore. Some spells were simple chants for health and fertility or protecting crops from bad growing seasons, but others were used for things like binding demons and summoning spirits, or even trapping angels on the mortal plane to use as powerful slaves.

"Aw, hell, are you telling me she's a witch?" Dean asked, already dreading how bad this could get if she was. "I made a date with a friggin'  _witch?_ "

"I'm not sure about that," Castiel said slowly, taking the book from the table and leafing through it as if looking for something specific. "There are definitely some powerful evil spells written in this book, but I don't sense the amount of malevolent energy and demonic presence here that should be attached to an object used for dark magic. It doesn't repulse me any more than the average paperback could. And neither did the woman who now owns it."

"So what's this mean?" Dean asked, glancing between the book and the angel as if he expected Castiel to light it on fire. "Did the original owner just use the white magic parts of it? And why would Valerie have a book this powerful if she isn't a witch?" This was all starting to get way too complicated way too fast for his liking.

"That's what I'm trying to…" Castiel paused, squinting at something on the inside of the front cover, and then handed the tome back to Sam. "There. Read the inscription on the inside."

Sam did, Dean leaning over his shoulder so he could see it too:

_From John Young_

_To my dearest wife Alse,_

_On our wedding day_

_Second Day of April, Year of Our Lord 1625_

Sam stared hard at the inscription for a long time, trying to remember where he had heard that name before, and then it hit him like a punch to the face.

"Dean! Do you remember that book Bobby had us read as kids about all the people hanged for witchcraft in the seventeenth century?"

"Vaguely. How do  _you_  remember that? You were like eight years old."

Sam ignored him, pulling out his smart-phone so he could look something up. "Here it is: Alse Young – she was one of the first people ever killed for practicing witchcraft in the U.S. colonies, back in 1647 in Connecticut. It was forty-five years before the Salem Witch Trials began. Apparently she was highly respected as a midwife and healer in the village where she lived, until her husband suddenly accused her and her thirteen-year-old daughter of practicing black magic and trying to kill him. The townspeople believed him, and both women were executed the next day, on May twenty-sixth, 1647."

"Why would he want to kill her?" Dean asked. "I thought the whole point of marrying a woman was to be together until one of you died back in those days. Shouldn't he have been proud of her for being so well-liked or something? And besides, he was the one who bought her that damn book in the first place, right? What the hell's with that? Weren't those colonists supposed to be super-Christians who feared everything pagan?"

"Not everything," Castiel corrected. "They did hate and fear the black arts, but many of the old pagan traditions of healing and medicine were still widely used and respected, even among the most devout Puritans. I think I can reasonably guess John's motivations, though," he added quietly. "It says that Alse and her only child, a girl named Alice, were sentenced to die, correct? In those days, having a son was the most important thing a man could accomplish. Alse would have been almost fifty when she was hanged, past her child-bearing years, and she had never given John a male heir."

"So what, you think he found another woman he could knock up and decided he didn't want his wife and daughter anymore?" Dean asked, disgust twisting his features into a scowl.

"To put it crudely, yes. In those days, adultery was a sin that was guaranteed to earn you expulsion from the Puritan colonies and public shame for the rest of your life, if not a death sentence. He probably thought he had no other choice but to remove his wife and daughter from the picture entirely." He paused, running a hand down the worn spine of the old spellbook. "But that still doesn't explain how this wound up here."

"I think I might have just found the answer to that, too," Sam said, lifting up another book from the stack on the edge of the table.

It was a book of genealogy, claiming to date all the way back to the medieval era. Sam flipped it open to a page that he could see had been dog-eared, looking over the names until he found "Young, Alse and John." There, beside the photo-less names, someone had written, "ancestor on Dad's side."

"I think Valerie's a descendant of John Young and this, 'Tabitha Butcher,'" he said, reading the name of the woman who had fathered two sons for John Young that obviously weren't Alse's. "But this is weird, look." He trailed his finger down the list of descendants, waiting for Dean and Cas to figure it out too. Surprisingly, Dean got it before the angel did this time.

"All of their direct descendants are men," the older Winchester said slowly, reading the names as Sam's hand passed them. "The only women in the bloodline married into it; there hasn't been a single recorded daughter born until Valerie."

"Right," Sam said, nodding grimly. "And since it doesn't look like any of the men in the bloodline had any issue with their spouses dropping dead for no reason, this whole thing probably means Valerie's been unlucky enough to inherit the first round of some kind of family curse."

"You think?"

"I'd bet the Impala on it."

"You don't get to bet her, she's my baby."

"Fine, then I'd get you to bet the Impala. The point is, John Young pissed off a witch, one whose daughter was probably a witch-in-training, so he could find himself another woman. It would make sense that she might have cursed him and his descendants."

"But why only women?"

Sam sighed. "As weird as it sounds, she probably still loved her husband to some degree even after all he'd done, and would've blamed the woman who seduced him more than she blamed him. She'd want to make sure no women that descended from Tabitha could ever take another woman's husband from his family again – maybe even if that meant killing the men to keep her alone forever."

"Uh-huh… You sure seem to be good at thinking like a woman today, Sammy. Is it that time of the month again? Do I need to run to the pharmacy for you?"

Sam blushed a little. "Shut up. I don't know why I know all that, I just do, okay? And it's the best lead we've got so far."

It was only then that the two of them realized Castiel hadn't said anything for quite some time, which was odd considering the angel had been a lot chattier than usual today. They turned to look at him, eyes widening in concern when they realized he had sunk down into one of the chairs on the other side of the room, clutching his head in his hands like he was suffering from a migraine and muttering softly to himself.

"Cas?" Dean asked, going to the angel's side and putting a hand on his shoulder. When Castiel didn't respond, he shook him a bit. "Cas, hey! What's wrong?"

"Not unfaithful… My vessel was never unfaithful, and neither am I. Why does she keep saying that? What does she mean? I know she's trying to tell me something, but what is it?"

"CASTIEL!"

That startled the blue-eyed man out of whatever trance he seemed to have been in, and he was up on his feet in an instant, angel blade drawn in defense before he came back to himself and realized it was only Sam and Dean in the room with him. He immediately lowered the weapon, looking like he would be blushing if angels were capable of it, and shook his head.

"I'm sorry. What were you saying?"

"Alright, that's it," Dean said, grabbing up the spellbook from the table and striding toward the front door. "We've gotta get this thing out of here and burn it. There's been something weird going on ever since we met Valerie, and I bet it's got everything to do with this damn book."

He had just opened the door, letting Sam and Castiel out first, when he suddenly felt himself flying through the air, smashing into a trinket-covered table in the entryway and landing on the floor in a pile of shattered glass and porcelain. Groaning, he looked up, noticing that Sam had been knocked out cold just outside the door; Castiel was glaring murderously at something from inside a circle of holy fire, pacing like a caged animal looking to kill its captor.

And then, stepping out from around the base of one of the large trees in the front yard as casually as could be, was Valerie. She waved her hand, and Sam's arms and legs were bound by thick vines from the plants in her garden before he was pushed up and bound to an enormous oak tree.

"You Winchesters," she said softly, shaking her head and chuckling as she made her way to the front door. On her way in she stepped easily around the edge of the holy oil, laughing and spitting at the angel still trapped inside the fire. She closed the door and smirked at Dean, kicking him in the nose with the sharp toe of her high-heeled black shoe and making him cry out as he felt the bones break. The pained groan drew a furious sound from the angel outside.

"You just don't know when to leave well enough alone, do you?" She picked up the old book from where it had fallen to the floor, flipping through it like a magazine while Dean tried and failed to get up with her magic pinning him to the ground. Once she found a page she seemed to like, she smirked, stooping down and pulling Dean's head up by a fistful of his hair as her eyes flashed black.

"You be a good boy now, Deano," she said, her voice now a low, menacing hiss. "You and I are going to have so much fun together."


	8. Hanging By a Thread

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. I do not own any of the characters, barring any OCs, in this story.
> 
> A/N: Okay, so I thought that I was going to end this story in the next chapter, but with the way this particular chapter turned out I decided to split it into two. That'll make the story an even ten chapters. (Woo!) So please, enjoy this shorter - but no less action-y - bonus chapter. :)

"What do you want with us, bitch?" Dean spat as he was dragged into the living room and pushed against the far wall, feet and hands immobilized by invisible bonds. "If you wanted me to stay that badly, all you had to do was ask." Sam and Castiel were still outside; even though he really hoped one or both of them would be coming to his aid, he really doubted it. So for now it looked like he was on his own, and he had absolutely no idea how he was going to get free. And until he came up with something, the best thing he could think of was mouthing off to buy himself time.

The demon in Valerie's body chuckled, coming closer to him and stroking her hand lightly down the side of his face.

"You're a shameless flirt, Dean. I thought I told you to be good," she said sweetly.

Dean growled. "Just cut to the chase. Why trap us first if all you want to do is kill us? You have a thing for playing with your food?"

"Ohoho, Dean, you have no idea," she said silkily, tossing her long brown curls over her shoulder while she gathered a brass bowl and a collection of herbs from the kitchen. Dean kicked himself for not thinking to search Valerie's cabinets for anything more sinister than salt and rosemary earlier. Once she had found everything she wanted she placed it all on the coffee table, mixing it together in the bowl before looking up at him. "One last thing…"

Valerie strode over and grabbed his hand, and he hissed as he felt the blade of a small knife slide over his palm and cut through the flesh. She squeezed it hard, milking more blood from the deep slice, and then returned the bowl to the table. To Dean's dismay she immediately began chanting over it, her voice growing louder and louder with every word, and he knew the instant she dropped a match on top and ignited the whole mixture that things were about to get bad and fast.

_"Audite sermonem meum, o ultrices spiritus._

_Hic est infideliter. Qui autem incredulus est verbum Dei._

_Vendidisti facta ultione animam tuam ad servum meum._

_Sed resurgere. Quia opus te habeo."_

As soon as she finished the incantation the smoldering red flame in the bowl blew out, sending up a puff of smoke that smelled, in addition to the scent of burnt spices, like the stale, musty odor of a dried-up set of bones pulled from an ancient grave. The temperature in the room immediately dropped, and Dean instinctively tensed when he saw his breath making visible clouds in front of his face.

Even as he watched, a misty form materialized in front of Valerie, slowly solidifying until it had taken the shape of a middle-aged woman wearing a long, pale brown dress with her hair tied back into a bonnet. A cross hung from a long cord around her neck. Her face was wrinkled, prematurely aged by the hardships of her nearly forty-seven years, and the long crows' feet around her eyes made her look irritable and severe. She was a colonial-era Puritan, no doubt about it, and Dean already knew exactly which one she was.

"So let me guess," he said to the demon, watching as Alse Young opened her dull eyes and stared blankly at him. Her gaze was nowhere near warm, but not hostile either – at least for the time being. "You've been the one pulling the strings on all these so-called suicides, right? Set your little witch-ghost slave loose on the town and let her kill every man who comes close to Valerie? But what's your game? Why bother with a tiny place like this?"

"To get you here, of course," she answered with a shrug, like it should be the most obvious thing in the world. "For all you hunters claim to be untraceable, your patterns really are easy to track. All I had to do was tip off Bobby's old friend Ross, and I knew he'd have you idiots and that impotent angel down here in a flash. You boys really are fools, you know."

"Yeah, we get that a lot. But what's  _your_  beef with us, huh? We kill your sister or boyfriend or something? 'Cause I gotta tell ya, all you demons start looking alike after a while."

"It's not about me, Deano. It's about the way you two keep fighting against the orders of Heaven and Hell. Your little brother Sammy is going to say yes one way or the other; my father the Morning Star will see to that. But you, pain in the ass that you are, keep getting in the way. So the best way I can think of to help our boy king along is to get you out of the picture. Once Sam realizes Big Bro isn't here to give him crap about it anymore, he'll embrace his powers and say yes in a heartbeat – just like we both know he's always wanted to."

"Screw you. Sam doesn't want a damn thing to do with Hell and you know it. He never has."

"Yeah? Well how about we see how true that is with you dead and Castiel too busy burning to death to bring you back?" She curled her lips back in a snarling grin, turning to Alse with a wicked laugh bubbling up in her throat.

_"Et interfice eum."_

At the demon's command, Alse's eyes suddenly narrowed to slits, her teeth bared as she approached Dean and grabbed him by the throat with both hands. He felt himself being lifted away from the wall, still immobilized by whatever spell the demon had cast on him, and try as he might he couldn't will his limbs to move and free himself.

"Unfaithful… Unfaithful… Sinner in the eyes of God…" Alse hissed. Dean groaned, hating how hard it was becoming to breathe but glad her hands were too small and frail to completely encircle his neck.

"Finish him!" Valerie shouted.

Alse nodded, and suddenly there was a long rope looping around Dean's neck, tightening around his windpipe as something invisible pulled on it and drew him up toward the ceiling. He gasped like a fish and the noose continued to tighten, lifting higher and higher until his feet were a foot off the ground and leaving him hanging only by the noose. Suddenly the bonds on his limbs released and he thrashed violently, legs kicking in the empty space below as his hands scrabbled against his throat, trying and failing to loosen the thick coil of rope so he could take even a small sip of life-giving air. His heart was racing, thundering in his ears, the horrible ache in his lungs telling him he couldn't breathe and begging him to do something to remedy that. Dark spots were beginning to swim in front of his eyes, and he couldn't seem to focus on any one object as his vision darted around the room in desperate panic.

"A sinner in the eyes of God…"

The front door suddenly slammed open, and Dean felt a sharp tug on his neck as the rope decided to tighten one last time. Then, in a way that would have been relieving had he been lucid enough to realize it, his entire world went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Okay, so I made up that summoning spell myself. (It's really hard to look up spells for making ghosts do your bidding without getting into some REALLY strange websites. *shudder*) So, anyway, the translations (at least according to Google) are as follows:
> 
> "Audite sermonem meum, o ultrices spiritus." ="Hear my command, o vengeful spirit."
> 
> "Hic est infideliter. Qui autem incredulus est verbum Dei." ="This man is unfaithful. He disobeys the word of God."
> 
> "Vendidisti facta ultione animam tuam ad servum meum." ="You sold your soul for vengeance and became my servant."
> 
> "Sed resurgere. Quia opus te habeo." ="Now rise. I have work for you."
> 
> "Et interfice eum." ="Kill him."


	9. Breathe Easy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. I do not own any of the characters, barring any OCs, in this story.
> 
> A/N: Alright, we're in the final stretch now, people! This chapter will pretty much finish up the case; all that's left now (and which will be posted within the next day or two) is the epilogue. Enjoy! (This chapter's about to get whumpy.)

"Hurry up, Cas!" Sam hissed, waiting for the angel to unlock the front door so the two of them could go in after Dean. Normally the angel would have just transported himself directly inside, but with a demon this powerful he knew it was necessary to have Sam along for backup at all times. Neither knew what else might wait in the house, and to leave the capable hunter outside while he went in alone would be foolish.

It was a complete miracle that they'd managed to get free at all. While Castiel had been pacing back and forth in the circle of holy fire, furious and as near to panicking as Sam had ever seen him, the younger Winchester had been trying to reach his knife, failing since his legs and arms were stretched out so far he couldn't bend them if he wanted to. There was no way he could reach anything to free himself.

But just when it looked like neither of them were going to be able to do anything useful without Dean's help, the enchantments holding the vines in place around Sam's joints had weakened, and using every bit of strength his muscles possessed had finally been enough to break one of his arms free. Within seconds he had retrieved his knife and released himself from the tree entirely, finding the hose lying in the middle of Valerie's flower garden and putting out a section of the holy fire so Cas could escape as well.

The two of them had immediately dashed toward the house, dread pooling in the younger hunter's belly when neither one could make out the sounds of a struggle from outside. Something serious must have happened to weaken the demon's concentration, and Sam only hoped it was Dean who had come out on top of whatever it was.

Finally, after an agonizing few seconds that seemed to last forever, the deadbolt clicked open and Castiel flung the door wide, Sam dashing in after him and then freezing in horror at what he saw. Valerie, obviously still possessed by the demon, was standing in the center of the room, eyes shining black as she muttered some kind of incantation under her breath. The ghost of a woman who looked centuries old stood beside her, arms raised in front of her and palms out as if she was concentrating on holding something in place by willpower alone.

And there, completely unmoving as he dangled just above the ground by a thick rope around his neck, was Dean.

Castiel's eyes widened at the sight and he lunged at the ghost, causing her to temporarily disappear with a flick of his wrist. Sam was right behind him, catching Dean in his arms as the rope holding him slackened and he started to drop to the ground.

While Sam worked on untying the rope from around his brother's bruised and chafed neck, Castiel moved toward the brothers, using a small portion of his already weakened power to send them both outside to where the Impala was parked, far away from the house and the reach of the demon. Once he was sure they were out of harm's way he rushed at Valerie, laying his palm against her head before she could move.

But instead of burning out inside Valerie's body, the demon just smiled, laughing when Castiel's brow creased in confusion and he still failed to smite her.

"Aww, what's the matter Cassie-boy? Too weak now to take down little ol' me? How the mighty have fallen." She suddenly lunged at him and he barely dodged, gasping in pain when the tip of an angel blade slashed across his belly and left a deep, glowing gash in its wake. Grinning, she twirled the blade around in her hand, laughing when Castiel stared at it in shock. "What? You think you're the only one who knows how to trick someone? It was pretty easy to swipe your blade when all you paid attention to were those two pets of yours."

Snarling when he realized how easily she had managed to take his weapon from him, Cas quickly stooped to pick up the demon-killing blade, which had fallen from Dean's pocket when he was dragged into the living room, and took up a slightly shaky fighting stance. It wasn't an ideal weapon – the reach was shorter than he was used to, and the blade had only a sharp tip and one sharp edge instead of three – but it would get the job done if necessary.

"Are you serious, Castiel?" she taunted. "You really think you can take me down with that little pig-sticker? Alright then, it's your death-wish. Bring it on, Angel-face."

With a level of speed that didn't quite fit her vessel's thin, soft-looking body, the demon lunged for him, swiping and stabbing with the angel blade as she searched for an opening in his defenses. Castiel parried her easily, keeping his arms close to his body and not wasting any more energy in his movements than was necessary as he waited for her to make a mistake. He didn't have much strength to begin with these days, and now that he was fighting wounded he had no desire to leave any more openings for her to get through.

The two of them circled each other like wolves, trading glancing blows back and forth but neither doing any real damage, until suddenly Castiel felt the air behind him chill so dramatically that it was impossible not to notice. He whirled around, preparing to repel the spirit of Alse Young yet again, and was surprised when she ignored him completely and rushed at Valerie instead. The demon snarled, slashing out with Castiel's blade and causing her to dissipate in a fraction of a second, but that fraction of a second was all Castiel needed.

In an instant he had rushed his opponent, driving the demon-killing knife into her chest up to the hilt. She gasped, a trickle of blood running from one corner of her mouth, and then he gave it one final twist and she screamed, orange-colored light flickering through her vessel's chest and eyes as she ceased to exist. He pulled the knife out with a wet, sucking sound and Valerie's body slumped to the floor dead.

Kneeling beside her prone form, Castiel said a silent prayer to his Father, asking Him to guide her innocent soul to its final resting place. Then he stood and approached the old spellbook still lying on the coffee table, not surprised to find a ghostly hand next to his on the pages as he held it in his hands.

"You must be put to rest now," he said softly, not wanting to anger the spirit who had suddenly decided to change her loyalties and help him.

"I know," she said with a nod. She knelt on the floor at his feet, hands clasped as if in prayer. "Castiel, Angel of the Lord, I beg your forgiveness for the trouble I have caused. Had I known that punishing John meant becoming a servant of the Devil, I would never have done so. Please believe me, I never meant for your friends to be harmed."

Castiel shook his head, putting his hand on the woman's translucent shoulder and smiling gently. "It wasn't your fault, Alse. Demons can take advantage of even the most pious, and I know you were a very devout woman throughout your life. My Father forgave you centuries ago." He picked up one of the lighters from the table, holding it up to the old parchment that made up the ancient book. "Now go. It's time for you to take your place in Paradise."

Alse smiled brightly, blinking away tears as her body began to disintegrate into flames. "Thank you, O Servant of God. Thank you…"

Once she was gone, Castiel sighed, realizing he still needed to do something with the body of Valerie Sanders. Luckily, once he had swept up the burned remains of the book it didn't take much rearranging to make it look like a homicide, and hopefully the police would soon find her and notify her family of her passing.

He turned and walked out of the front door, wincing as he held the still-bleeding gash across his abdomen. It was finally time for him to go check on Sam and Dean. He only hoped they were both faring better than he was after all this.

* * *

While Castiel was busy fighting against the demon, Sam was trying to rouse his brother, his heart racing with panic when he saw how waxy and blue Dean's skin looked and realized he hadn't seen his brother so much as twitch since finding him in Valerie's house.

"Oh God, please no," he muttered, pressing his ear to his brother's chest to see if he could hear anything. He had to be okay, he had to be… But no matter how hard he listened there were no signs of life; Dean stayed completely and utterly still, and Sam couldn't hear so much as a single breath or heartbeat.

"No.  _No,_ " he said shakily, hands already tearing open his brother's flannel shirts to expose the skin beneath. "You are  _not_  gonna die on me, you son of a bitch. Not like this."

He tilted Dean's chin back and pinched his nose, giving him two breaths and making sure his chest rose each time before moving to his side and starting compressions. "One, two, three, four…"

Thirty times he pressed the heels of his hands deep into his brother's sternum, feeling the bones creaking under the strain and hating the way the older hunter's entire body rocked lifelessly back and forth with each push of Sam's hands. It wasn't right; Dean wasn't supposed to die from something like this, not now when Sam and Castiel needed him most. Without him they'd both fall apart. Sam couldn't do this alone; he just  _couldn't_.

Two more breaths, two more times Dean's chest rose and fell and then failed to rise again. It was becoming tougher to get air into him now – the rope around his neck had bruised it and caused his airway to start swelling. But Sam just tried harder, pushing as much oxygen into the starving lungs as he had to to keep Dean alive. "One, two, three, four…" Another two breaths. Another thirty compressions. He knew Dean was no doubt going to be sore when he came to, if not suffer from one or more cracked ribs, but if a little bruising and pain was what it took to keep his brother alive then so be it. He just had to get him back first.

"Come on, Dean, breathe. You can do it, I know you can do it. Breathe!" Sam pleaded, tears in his eyes as he pinched Dean's nose and forced air into his brother's starving lungs a fourth time. "Come on, man, come on." He moved back to Dean's side, hands interlocked over his breastbone as he prepared for another round of CPR, and then froze in surprise. Needing to verify he was actually feeling what he thought he was, he pressed his ear to his brother's chest again, letting out a choked sob when he heard a heartbeat, quiet and slow but definitely present, drumming inside his ribcage.

"Oh, thank God…" For one of the few times he could remember, Sam was grateful to their father for being such a stickler about survival skills; his insistence that Sam and Dean be proficient in first aid from a young age had just saved his brother's life.

A moment later Dean jerked and gasped, sucking in a wheezing breath and attempting to sit up before falling limply back again. Sam pulled him up so Dean's back was resting against his chest, muttering quiet reassurances and keeping him calm as he slowly regained consciousness.

"S… S'my? Wh'…?" he rasped out, sounding like he'd just gargled glass. He was still panting harshly, his lungs trying to make up for all the time they had spent slacking off as his body demanded oxygen. His eyes rolled wildly beneath their lids, fighting to regain control of themselves as he searched for his little brother's face.

"Shh, easy," Sam said quietly, holding Dean still and rubbing his chest reassuringly. "You're okay now, you're okay. Just catch your breath for a minute, alright?"

"Mmnn…"

They sat there for a few minutes, Dean leaning against his gigantic younger brother so he could stay upright, Sam waiting for his own heartbeat to slow down now that he was coming down from his adrenaline high. He hoped Cas was doing alright on his own; with the way his hands were shaking right now, not to mention the rest of him, he would be just short of useless in a fight.

As if he'd heard Sam thinking his name, Castiel suddenly appeared behind them, kneeling down beside Dean with wide, concerned eyes.

"Sam? What happened?" he asked, noticing how weak and disoriented Dean seemed and how much trouble he was still having catching his breath.

"He, uh…" Sam started, swallowing thickly as the horrible image of Dean's lifeless body swam into focus in his mind's eye. "He was dead, Cas; the noose had been on too long by the time we got there. No heartbeat, not breathing, nothing. I had to bring him back."

Castiel said nothing, instead reaching out and touching the dark bruise circling the skin on Dean's neck. It faded slightly beneath his fingertips, and Dean slumped over a second later, unconscious and limp as a rag doll.

"His airway won't swell any further, and he'll sleep at least until we can get to the motel and treat him with the first aid kit. Unfortunately that's all I can do for him now," he said apologetically, gesturing to his own wound which was still bleeding sluggishly, although no longer leaking grace. "Being cut off from Heaven has weakened me more than I thought. If I use any more grace today, I'll be out of commission for several days afterward. I'm sorry."

Sam shook his head. "It's fine, Cas. He's breathing better, and that's the main thing I was worried about."

Castiel nodded, thankful for Sam's understanding. "Well then, should we start making our way back to the motel so we can return to Sioux Falls?"

Sam fished Dean's keys out of his pocket, kneeling down so he and Castiel could each take one of Dean's arms and start maneuvering him into the backseat.

"Hell. Yes."


	10. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. I do not own any of the characters, barring any OCs, in this story.

"Yeah, thanks Bobby. We'll see you in about twelve hours," Sam said, hanging up the phone and handing it to Castiel to store in the glove box. He sighed tiredly, looking back at his brother in the rearview mirror for about the twentieth time since leaving the tiny town of Ada.

It hadn't taken long after deciding to head back to the motel for Sam to repack the bags, clean the room a little, and get the three of them back on the road. He had brought Dean inside to relax on the bed while he and Cas were gathering up all the weapons and toiletries, too shaken by what had just happened minutes ago to willingly leave him in the car on his own. Dean protested at first, but when it became apparent that both Sam and Castiel planned on mother-henning him, he gave up, knowing he stood no chance against two sets of puppy-dog eyes.

Now the older hunter was stretched out in the backseat once again, covered with a thin blanket and settled comfortably on top of two fluffy bedspreads and pillow that Sam had swiped from the room. He was still in a great deal of pain; even after Castiel's minor patch-up job, he still had a lot of vivid bruising around his neck, as well as an incredible amount of soreness in his chest thanks to enduring Sam-strength CPR. But the two cloth-wrapped ice packs he held against his neck were at least helping keep the throbbing to a minimum, and the painkillers his brother had pushed on him were gradually starting to take effect.

By the time they turned onto the highway that would take them out of Ada and back toward Sioux Falls, he was already starting to fall asleep.

"You okay, Dean?" Sam asked some ten minutes later when they hit a small pothole, making Dean grunt softly as his already abused body protested the slight movement. "You need another blanket or anything?"

"'m fine, S'mmy," Dean muttered, not even bothering to open his eyes. "'m sore, not dyin'."

Sam winced. "That isn't funny."

"Yeah, well, now y' know h'w I feel every time a mons'er tries t' wring your giraffe neck." His words were starting to slur with exhaustion and Sam shook his head, smiling when he looked back and Saw the way Dean was curled up under the blanket, cuddling with the pillow like it was the best friend he'd ever had.

"Alright, alright, true. Just go to sleep, jerk."

"Bisshh…"

He was sound asleep and snoring not thirty seconds later. Neither Sam nor Castiel said anything else for the next half hour or so, instead just listening to the sounds of Metallica and Black Sabbath playing through the Impala's speakers. It was awkward, Sam thought, sitting beside Cas in the front of the Impala instead of his brother. The angel wasn't terrible company, of course, but he was more Dean's friend than Sam's; that, and he really didn't seem interested in speaking when he could stare, unblinking, out at the scenery for twelve hours at a time.

Surprisingly though, it was Castiel who broke the silence a few minutes later.

"Are you alright, Sam?" he asked quietly, still looking out the window despite obviously paying attention to the younger Winchester.

"Huh? Uh, yeah, I'm fine," Sam answered distractedly, not sure exactly what Cas was asking. "I didn't really get tossed around like you and Dean did, so –"

"That isn't what I mean." The angel had turned around now, his blue eyes intense and focused as he stared fixedly at Sam. "You're still finding ways to blame yourself for all of this, aren't you? To make everything that's happened even before today your fault?"

Sam said nothing for a while, fingers clenching around the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white, and then sighed. There was no way he could lie to Castiel; he might as well indulge him.

"You know what? Yeah, I am. Because in case you hadn't noticed, I'm the one that let Lucifer out; I'm the one who unleashed the Four Horsemen on this planet and then managed to fall off the demon-blood rehab wagon the second Famine came around; I'm the one the demons are all trying to recruit for the Devil; and I'm the reason a demon attacked my brother and he almost died right in front of me today. So yeah, I'm finding it hard to make any of this anyone else's fault but mine."

"Sam…" Castiel sighed, staring out the front window as he thought of how best to phrase what he was thinking. "You have made mistakes in your life, and you've done things that before, as a blind supporter of everything my brothers said, I would have considered unforgiveable. But you aren't the only one at fault, not for any of it.

"You thought you were doing the right thing, just like Dean did, and I did, and my brothers and sisters did. But if you'll remember, I was the one who failed to save your brother from Hell in time, and I was the one who did what I thought was best by letting you out of the panic room. None of us knew what the right thing was until it was too late; some of us still don't." His eyes drifted skyward, obviously thinking of the other angels, who had all played the three of them so badly in the last year.

"That still doesn't make anything I did okay."

"No, it doesn't. But you were a victim here as much as anyone else, and I need you to understand that. You need to learn to forgive yourself for the things that you had no control over, or the fact that Dean and Bobby and I are all trying to help you to stand against Lucifer will be pointless. We can't protect you from yourself, Sam; you have to let us in, and let us assist you."

Sam turned briefly to stare at the angel, eyes wide in disbelief at what he was hearing. Was Castiel, the socially awkward demon-smiting Angel of the Lord who had originally threatened to eliminate him simply for being allied with Ruby, honestly trying to comfort him right now?

"I have faith that you're a good man," Cas continued, as if he had read the younger hunter's mind. "If perhaps a bit misguided. Just remember that you aren't alone in this fight; you have Dean and Bobby, and even me, and we will be there to help whenever you need it. You  _can_  do this, Sam. I have faith in you."

The young hunter smiled, then, the first genuine smile he'd given in a long time, and nodded to the angel.

"Thanks, Cas. That's… it means a lot."

"You're welcome, Sam. Now, as Dean and Bobby like to say, I think we should 'end this chick-flick moment before we both start growing lady parts.'"

Sam laughed at the way Castiel quoted the two older hunters, as if parroting words in some foreign language he'd never spoken before. He could practically see the quotation marks falling out of the angel's mouth.

"You got it."

He pressed down a little harder on the accelerator, leaving Valerie Sanders and Ada and Alse Young even farther behind them as the Impala flew down the highway toward the only real home the Winchesters had ever known. His talk with Cas hadn't solved everything, not by a long shot, but he was feeling happier right now than he had in a long time – maybe since before he had freed Lucifer from the Cage. And with that new happiness came a fresh sense of determination. He was going to stop Lucifer and the Apocalypse; his family and friends were counting on him.

 _"I'm going to put that son of a bitch back in Hell where he belongs,"_  Sam thought, gripping the steering wheel so hard his that hands started to shake.  _"Or if nothing else, I'll go down trying."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Alright, everyone. That's all I've got for this story. Thank you to everyone who has read, followed, favorited, and left reviews for this fic. It really means a lot that people have stayed interested in it for almost a full year. I hope you enjoyed this last little bit, and I ask that you please leave a review if you can find the time.
> 
> Thanks again, everyone. Zana Zira, out!


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